Tag: Totem Pole

I have to apologize. Bad habits keep returning. I can’t believe the last blog entry is already nine days old. Anyway, now it’s time to recall what happened in these nine days and there is a lot to write about. Undoubtedly, there were two highlights in the last nine days: Firstly, I played at the Magic GP Vancouver. Not the main event but great Sealed Deck side events. And secondly, I had a job interview at the BC Liquor stores for a position as a Senior Store Manager yesterday.

The Magic GP Vancouver began on Friday 18th, ended on Sunday 20th and I guess that there were probably around 2000 visitors at peak times. As there were no good events on Friday, I decided to only go there on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday was a complete disaster for me although the pool I got in my Sealed Event was fairly okay. Nevertheless, I went 0-2 in both of the first matches and this meant that I could not win any great prizes anymore. So I dropped from the event, drove home and used the rest of the day to prepare for my upcoming job interview. Then, on Sunday, I went back to the GP in the morning and began playing in another Sealed Deck event (Pro Tour Qualifier). The pool was fairly bad and I expected to lose my matches again but the opposite happened. I won all of my first four matches and I was only one win away from making the Top8 and the subsequent draft. That would have been really huge, what a turn of events!!! Then, in my last match, I had bad draws, had to mulligan in both of my two games and lost them without any real chance. Sad, really. Total loser as Mr. Trump would say. 🙂 So I expected to be placed 2nd in my pod but then there was an unpleasant surprise. Because they determine the placings based on some freaky tiebreaker rules, I was placed 3rd instead of second. Too bad, because in third place, I got less than half of the prizes than the guy who placed second. What a frustration, really. I somehow felt I got betrayed and cheated and my mood dropped considerably. After having left the event, I began thinking about the situation again. In the end, I made my peace with the situation fairly quickly because it had not been a deliberate decision by someone to treat me unfairly but it was just a result of a rather strange tiebreaker system. Next time, this system may be working in my favor, who knows? Also, had somebody told me at the start of the event that I would place third in the pod with the pile of cards I opened, I would have laughed hard. So I guess I should be grateful for what I achieved because it was unexpected and more than I could have hoped for. In any case, it is always hard to accept such results if you’re an ambitious player and you want to win. And in Magic, I like it when my decks perform and I win. 🙂 Anyway. After the event, I got my play mat signed by all the artist and I bought a great Goblin- Token card from the artist “rk post”. Unfortunately, the Donald Trump token was already sold out. Bummer!

My BG midrange- deck without any great synnergy whatsoever. The deck’s allstar: Herald of Anguish. Won me at least 4 games. Notice the lack of good 4drops while playing 2 druids of the Cowl.Got to start playing Red Aggro again and use this token. 🙂 Great humor in this card.

Well, that was the GP. Then, on Monday, I had my first job interview here in Canada at the headquarters of the BC Liquor stores in Vancouver. Before beeing interviewed by two Regional managers and one HR manager, I had 30 minutes to analyze a Profit & Loss statement. Good thing I have already done that more than once in my life. So I felt it wasn’t a big deal, really. Then, the following panel interview went fairly well and I talked a lot about my past job experience. Of course I didn’t get an immediate feedback and it may take up to three weeks until they tell me if they want me as a Senior Store Manager or not. Also, I will not have a choice of store but they will tell me in which store they need me based on my skillset and the manager’s skillset needed in the stores that currently don’t have a manager. In any case, I will probably stay in the Greater Vancouver Area somewhere as they are currently only looking for managers over here. But hey, why not? It’s pretty nice here, I won’t complain about staying…

Talk about staying. Today I received the results of the English- test I took 11 days ago. On a scale of 1-12 I scored like this: Reading 12, Listening 11, Speaking 10 and Writing 8. Yep, I am mostly happy but the Writing mark puzzles me a bit. I had lots of time left when I wrote my answers and I felt they were fairly okay. So I don’t really understand why I only scored an 8 here. Well, that should not be my downfall I guess. In any case, I will enter these results in the immigration’s office questionnaire later today and see if it’s sufficient to apply for permanent residency or not. I’ll write about that in my next blog entry I guess.

And what else happened in the last 9 days? Verena and I spent a great Thursday together. We visited the Maritime Museum, enjoyed the sunny weather at Kitsilano Beach and went climbing again. Climbing was really great, I felt how I was already getting better at it and we had a lot of fun there. Verena was doing even better than me and climbed increadibly well. After the training, my muscles did not hurt nearly as bad as they did when we went climbing for the first time. In case I get the job at the BC Liquor stores, I will definitely look for a good nearby climbing hall and start doing that sport regularly. I really like it and if you haven’t tried it yet, just do it once. It’s a great experience. Also, you meet interesting people. Like the guy in the men’s dressing room. He stood next to me and yawned really loud. I:”Hey, someone’s really tired, huh?” He:”Oh yeah, and stoned”. I: “Uhh, okay. And climbing works when you’re stoned?”. He:”Hell yeah, I can only recommend it.”. I:”Right, go for it man.”. That’s Vancouver for you, great stuff. 🙂 Of course, Verena and I also went to the YukYuk Comedy club on Thursday evening to enjoy some more great stand- up comedy. Yep, I keep going there regularly, it’s great fun. 🙂

Apart from all the sight- seeing, I also kept running regularly and, of course, I also played at the board game night at the local store again. Not much to write about this but a few interesting pictures to look at. See below.

Some Alien- looking thing with tentacles at Tsawwassen Beach. No idea what it is but the plastic tentacles were hollow and had some hooks attached. Looked strange.Bald Eagle at Centennial Beach. German: Weisskopfseeadler.Great board game I played for the first time: Concordia. I (black meeples) beat Dave (red meeples) by 4 points, lucky me! 🙂

Well, that’s all for now I guess. When writing the next blog entry, I hope I’ll be able to report that I got the job and that I also started my application for the permanent residency. But we’ll see about that. 🙂

Since the last music advices were all Rock/Punk titles, it is now time to showcase a Rap song again. This one is from Sido, a pretty popular German Rapper who has moved from Gangsta- Rap to a more Mainstream- Rap during the last 15+ years. Still, even today’s songs are pretty nice if you like Rap music.